Part 1

By Marianne Lincoln

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee held a hearing on NSA Surveillance today at the Capitol. Perhaps this is not of local interest to everyone, but as an online news media, the Post took an interest. The CSPAN channel carried the hearings this evening, October 29, 2013.

Early in the hearings, two Acts were noted to be part of the process of worldwide and domestic spying programs. Their descriptions and a link to their data are below.

USA Patriot Act Section 215 (2001) – Allows the government to collect the metadata of all phone calls, not the actual call content, not the identity of any party nor the cell site location. Metadata includes information like the length of the call, number called from and to, time of call. The data is to be kept in repositories  within secure networks. This data may be queried by permission in advance by approved NSA officials and the basis for the queries is audited by the Department of Justice. The metadata can only be kept 5 years.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 – Allows the government to collect the content of email and phone calls of foreigners, not U.S. citizens either domestically or while abroad.

Lt. General James Clapper (Ret.) National Intelligence Director began the hearing by saying, “The unauthorized disclosure of these two programs has caused huge damage.” He also later said, “SIGINT, (signals intelligence) is hugely important, a crucial player. The SIGINT intelligence team is primary to what we know about terrorism.”

They spoke of balancing the program with the protection of Civil liberties and privacy.

“We agreed that we would take all our personal data and put it in a pile in a locked box.” Of the billions of records only 288 have been looked at according to General Keith Alexander (National Security Agency Director & U.S. Cyber Commander). “All of the program is audited 100%. The leaker (Snowden) did not have access to this data… About 30 people at the NSA are allowed to look into this data.”

This program of collecting data started around 2003, during the bush Administration. The current version is called the NIPF. The National Intelligence Priorities Framework “is the DNI’s guidance to the IC on the national intelligence priorities approved by the President. The NIPF guides prioritization for the operation, planning, and programming of U.S. intelligence analysis and collection. The NIPF is updated semiannually.”( From the FBi website.)

The tool collected metatdata around the world. It is a global network. It represents information that the U.S. and our NATO Allies collect in defense of our nations. The information is shared with our allies.

Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) noted in the meeting that the House Intelligence Committee is briefed and knows what takes place in the program.

Rep. Bachman asked some interesting questions regarding the illegality and unconstitutionality of Snowden’s actions. She asked and it was confirmed that other nations spy on the U.S. as foreigners, just as the U.S. has and does spy on foreigners. She was reading a series of very direct questions from a list.

The purpose of the hearing was to consider, since German Chancellor Andrea Merkel discovered her personal cell phone was also spied upon, if there needed to be any changes made to the program, perhaps to require a higher standard of proof.

In order to spy on a U.S. citizen, there is a requirement that the FISA court approve the application. Two Judges were noted, Bates and Walton. There is a complete list at this link.

So within the U.S., it is not the NSA spying on you. They just collect your cell phone metadata. However, to all the countries to whom you are a foreigner, who knows. Perhaps Andrea Merkel does.